


gentler waters

by greywardenblue



Category: October Daye Series - Seanan McGuire
Genre: Gen, Gillian Daye Marks-centric, The Unkindest Tide Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2020-10-24 21:34:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20712890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greywardenblue/pseuds/greywardenblue
Summary: “You don’t have any of your grandmother’s blood left in you,” the Luidaeg said. “And frankly, you should be damn thankful for that. But you’re still your mother’s girl, and now you are mine, too. You will not escape us so easily.”“That sounds like a threat,” Gillian said.“It sounds like whatever you want it to sound like. It can just as easily be a promise.”





	1. Chapter 1

Gillian heard the footsteps behind her and sped up, and whoever was following her did the same. She spun around suddenly, ready to shout at her mother to leave her alone, only to come face-to-face with one of her sidekicks - the blond boy who looked to be around her age. But with fairies, that didn’t mean much, did it?

“Why are you following me?” she demanded.

“Because you’re being stupid,” he said. She felt a flush of anger and opened her mouth to argue, but he went on. “You have every reason to be angry, but you’re still being stupid, and I won’t stop following you through this weird, dangerous place that neither of us really know until you listen to me.”

Gillian glared at him. “I don’t know you. I just got nearly killed by an actual mermaid. And you called me stupid twice in two sentences. Why the hell would I listen to you?”

The boy sighed and crossed his arms. “You said you know you can’t walk away from Faerie, but you’re still done. And I understand, I do. You got kidnapped twice, and now this - Faerie has been cruel to you and you have no reason to love it. But it will not let you go. The only thing you’ll achieve by pushing Toby and the rest of us away is that you’ll only get the bad stuff, and none of the good. And trust me, you’ll get the bad stuff either way.”

“You’re very bad at this convincing me thing,” Gillian said.

“Just let me finish, will you? Listen. Faerie is cruel. We know this, and believe me, I have always sort of known this, but I only really learned it in the last few years. It’s a nasty wake-up call. I got shot once. Pretty much all my friends have been kidnapped at one point. You know my boyfriend, Dean? The other guy around my age who travelled with us?” Gillian nodded silently. She did remember the boy - young man? - who came up to her to make small talk, and told her he was in charge of the fairy knowe on the coast that the other selkies have already told her about. He seemed nice, and he loved the water, too. “Him and his brother were kidnapped by the same woman who got you the first time. You probably don’t remember them being there, because we had to cloud your memories and everything, but that’s how we first met both of them.”

The boy was talking really fast, probably because he thought that if he stopped, Gillian would try to either interrupt or turn around and walk away. He was right, because she cut in as soon as she stopped for a breath.

“Sounds like trouble follows my mother around. This is just convincing me to stay away even more.”

The boy - Gillian really, really had to ask his name, because she couldn’t remember hearing it for the life of her - shook his head with an annoyed frown. “No. Well, yeah, but mostly it’s the other way around. When trouble happens, people call Toby. Do you understand? Most of my friends got kidnapped at some point, but not because of Toby. We became friends because Toby and I  _ saved them _ . I met my best friend, Raj, and my other friend Karen when my girlfriend and some other kids got kidnapped, and Toby and I followed them in and brought them home. I met my boyfriend Dean when him and his brother were kidnapped, and Toby and Tybalt and Connor and I saved them. I met Chelsea when two power-hungry assholes took her from her human mother and she accused Chelsea’s fae father who didn’t even know she existed, and then we went and saved her, and now the parents are happily married and they didn’t lose their daughter. Chelsea’s mom even got to keep her human job and everything. She teaches at Berkeley.”

Gillian’s eyes widened as the pieces clicked into place. “Professor Ames!” she exclaimed. “I knew it! After…” She reached towards the selkie skin unconsciously. “I loved her folklore class, and I liked her, before anything happened. Then I found out Faerie was real, and… the first time I went back to campus, she saw me in the corridor and she did a double take, and she looked at me and I  _ knew _ that she knew. But she just said hello and asked if everything was okay, and then told me really seriously that if I ever need help or just need to hide, I can go to her office.”

He nodded. “Yes, that’s her. And she was right. If you’re ever in danger, if you think somebody might be using magic or trying to cause trouble, or your illusions don’t work and you need to hide somewhere to fix them, go either to her, or to Professor Davies. He teaches chemistry.”

Gillian thought for a moment. “The guy with the really blue eyes?”

He laughed. “They look even bluer without the illusions.” He glanced around, but nobody was coming towards them or paying any attention. “Look, all I’m saying is… bad things happen, and they are horrible, but those bad things bring us closer together. After Blind Michael, I started hanging out at Toby’s place more, and Raj was there too, and that’s how we became best friends. And we hold sleepovers, and we play video games, and one time Toby and Chelsea’s dad took us to an amusement park and it was hilarious and fun. We’re a family.”

“I have a family,” Gillian said, feeling the urge to walk away again.

“So do I. I have parents and a sister, and I love them, and I miss them when they’re not around. But I also love Toby, and May, and Jazz, and Raj, and the Luidaeg, and sometimes even Tybalt when he’s not being a jerk. And Toby loves him, so I guess we’re both stuck with him. And you haven’t even met half those people! You’ve never had breakfast burritos at our place, or watched the Luidaeg sing karaoke, or complained together about what a bitch the Luidaeg’s sister is. Not Pete, Pete is awesome, actually. Anyone who approves of Dean’s parents is cool in my book. Anyway. You’ve never heard Tybalt sound like a Jane Austen novel when he’s nervous, and by the way he’s absolutely going to kill me for telling you that one.”

Gillian laughed despite herself, and turned away quickly. It was too late - he heard her clearly and smiled.

“Faerie is cruel,” he repeated. “What you heard back there, about killing humans not being against the Law… it’s difficult to bring change when most people are literally hundreds of years old and have no reason to change. But we’re still here, and we are trying, and there are kind people. There are so many kind people, and your mother is trying the hardest out of anyone I know. Your mother, who is terrified of water, willingly gets herself turned into a mermaid and swims underwater to save kids who are scared without their parents. Your mother walks through bushes of thorns and goes into dark places to save everyone she can. She didn’t get named a hero as a joke, you earn that sort of thing.”

Gillian was quiet, and stubbornly refused to look at him. She had known by now that Toby didn’t mean to leave, and she knew that both times she got in trouble, Toby came and saved her. But that didn’t make those experiences any less scary, or any less dangerous. Even if she would always come, what if she wasn’t fast enough? What if the damage was already done? 

“Did Danny have any of his dogs with you in the car?” the boy asked suddenly. Gillian shook his head. “Well, you have that to look forward to, then. And all the other stuff. But only if you stick around to meet Karen and Raj and the others. Only if you don’t push away the good things.”

“I think you’re full of shit,” Gillian said, even though she didn’t. She could already feel some of her anger and fear disappearing, but there was still enough left that she was not ready to admit he had a point. “And I want to go back to the selkies now.” She looked around uncertainly. “Do you know which way?”

He nodded. “I think so. Come on, we’ll stick together.” She started following, and he looked back at her with a smile. “It’s Quentin, by the way.”

\--

Gillian stood on the ship waiting for everyone else to board and watched her mother on the dock, talking to Poppy and the tall man with the greenish-bronze hair. He put a hand over his eyes, like he was crying and trying not to show it. Poppy was rubbing his back in comfort, and her mother stepped forward to hug him. Gillian wondered what they all looked so miserable about.

“You’re not swimming back with the others?”

Gillian didn’t turn. 

“It’s rude to ignore your elders, you know.”

“What are you going to do about it?” Gillian asked flatly. “Oh, you’re the scary sea witch, alright. But one of the first things you told me was that if you hurt me, even accidentally, my mother would try to kill you and maybe even succeed. I don’t think you want to risk that.” Maybe she was scared, a little bit. Maybe she wasn’t sure her argument would work. But a girl had to have principles sometimes, and after all they just did to her, she earned this.

The sea witch for quiet for so long that Gillian was starting to think it was a really bad idea to turn her back. Just as she moved to turn around, the witch laughed. “You’re your mother’s daughter,” she said. “Oh, you’ll deny it, you will fight against the accusation, but you’re so much like her and you don’t even realise. For one thing, you’re both terribly stupid and don’t know shit about anything.”

Gillian frowned, crossing her arms as she looked at the woman. She looked almost younger than Gillian now, Cousin Annie, only the lie didn’t work anymore. “I’m getting a little tired of people calling me stupid.”

“Then stop acting like it,” the Luidaeg said. “Or I’ll find myself playing Jenga with your bones one of these days.”

Gillian squinted. She had seen the sea witch scary, when that man went and tried to demand more skins. She had seen her people - she thought of them of her people now, and that was scary and soothing at the same time - terrified of her, and yet look at her with such longing. Like she belonged to them and they wanted her back.

The sea witch’s eyes, her green eyes that matched Gillian’s own now, were smiling.

“You’re lying,” she said.

The Luidaeg laughed. “I have to use what rare chances I get.” She looked out to the dock and Gillian followed her gaze. Toby was saying goodbye to the tall man and walking towards the ship with the striped one, the one that always held her so gently. Romeo or Paris or something. “You don’t have any of your grandmother’s blood left in you,” the Luidaeg said. “And frankly, you should be damn thankful for that. But you’re still your mother’s girl - both of your mothers’, I suppose, as much as I fucking hate giving Janet any credit here -, and now you are mine, too. You will not escape us so easily.”

“That sounds like a threat,” Gillian said. She wasn’t surprised by the name - Miranda had admitted she was born under another -, but she didn’t understand why the sea witch hated her so much. She’d have to ask about that, but she would ask the safer person.

The Luidaeg shrugged. “It sounds like whatever you want it to sound like. It can just as easily be a promise.”

A promise. A promise that she’d never be alone, that she’d have a family even long after her father is gone, even centuries in the future. A few years ago she couldn’t have even imagined living for centuries, but ever since she got the skin, she had dreams from centuries ago. She had dreams of seafoam and cliffs and mothers and siblings. She had Firtha, even if the Luidaeg didn’t include her in the list. She could already feel her more, since she was Roane. It wasn’t creepy like demonic possession, but a comforting presence, one she was already used to in her dreams now embracing her in the waking world, too.

She briefly wondered if the other Roane - the ones who used to be Selkies - would find it comforting, too. If the others would be as kind and forgiving as Firtha was. She remembered Liz bitterly telling her about the Choice, of having to wear a bloody skin or to make your mother bury you under your waves. Gillian never had a choice, not really, but she remembered the elfshot in her veins, she remembered soundlessly screaming that she wanted to live, she wanted to live, whatever the witch was going to do to her, she wanted to choose it so she could live. Would she have felt the same, if she knew about the blood on the skin?

The Luidaeg watched her silently, and Gillian wondered if she knew what she was thinking. The Roane could see the future, after all, and she was the first of them, the mother of all. Who’s to say she couldn’t read her mind, or at least read her face?

The sea witch from the horror stories reached out and put a hand on her arm. Gillian let her. Behind the Luidaeg, she saw her mother October look at them and then turn away with her face when her body so clearly yearned to step closer. She was giving her space, like Gillian had asked. That was good. She needed the space, to think about everything.

“Do you know where the kind boy went?” she asked. “The one whose mother is a mermaid.”

The Luidaeg nodded and pointed her in Dean’s direction. Gillian found him with Quentin and Poppy and the guy who spoke very formally and might or might not have been a Prince, but she sat down anyway. The ship got ready to sail home.


	2. Chapter 2

Gillian went home, told her mom the truth of what happened, gave her father a story about a beach trip with her mom that was a little awkward but fun so he wouldn’t worry, and then didn’t talk to anyone in Faerie for days, not even her fellow Roane. Liz did call once to ask if she wanted to come over but said it was fine when she didn’t, and that was more than what she expected.

She went back to her classes, and on the fifth day, she knocked on a door. Professor Ames opened it and looked at her in surprise.

“Gillian?” She glanced into the office behind her, then turned back to the girl. “Hello. Are you here to talk about… folklore?”

Gillian paused, wondering how she was supposed to answer that. “Actually,” she said, “I was hoping you could give me Chelsea’s phone number. I thought we could… hang out. Watch a movie. Talk about things. I think that… we could find something in common.”

The Professor’s confused expression turned into a smile, and she stepped aside. “Of course. Just come inside while I write it down for you.”

There was a man with glasses sitting at the table with his hand around a cup of tea, staring into nothing like he was about to nod off into sleep. It was the middle of the day, after all. Gillian squinted a little until she noticed the marks of an illusion around his face.

He turned his impossibly blue eyes on her and smiled, nodding a greeting. She nodded back quietly while Professor Ames got a piece of paper and a pen.

“Here you go,” she said gently, handing Gillian the number. “And Gillian… if you ever need to talk, my door is open. So is Walther’s, although as you can see, he is more awake at night.” Professor Ames nodded towards the man, who let out a laugh and took a sip of his tea.

Gillian smiled. “I hear that a lot lately,” she said. “Both of those things. But… I think I might need to work up to it.” She folded the piece of paper and slid it into her pocket. Every journey was made of small steps.


End file.
